A different path

Josh Hill thought about it as he pushed the broom across the basketball court at Holloway Recreation Center.

He thought about it as he performed janitorial duties at a local church, serving out the remainder of his community service.

But he had perhaps never thought harder about it than when he sat, handcuffed and ashamed, in front of his mother and a magistrate at the courthouse that day during his junior year of high school.

David Hall / Staff Writer

Josh Hill thought about it as he pushed the broom across the basketball court at Holloway Recreation Center.

He thought about it as he performed janitorial duties at a local church, serving out the remainder of his community service.

But he had perhaps never thought harder about it than when he sat, handcuffed and ashamed, in front of his mother and a magistrate at the courthouse that day during his junior year of high school.

Hill, a talented basketball player with a broken ankle and no team, wasn’t thinking about what he’d had and lost. He was thinking about what he couldn’t seem to allow himself to obtain.

It’s been more than two years since Hill was arrested for the first and only time after a fight at Kinston High School, where his poor attitude and resistance to coaching made him another face in the crowd instead of champion athlete.

His trip through the teen court system and the scathing glare of disappointment in his mother’s eyes that day served as a crossroads, and Hill, unlike many of his high school friends, chose wisely.

Now a freshman forward at Lenoir Community College, Hill is an unlikely college star who never played a minute of high school ball.

How he got there elucidates the essence of community college sports and why Bobby Dawson has coached at LCC for 36 years, giving kids like Hill a second chance.

“I think there’s a lot to learn from a Josh Hill,” said former KHS coach Wells Gulledge, who on two occasions had to tell Hill that his services on the team weren’t needed despite the fact that he might have started on a state championship squad. “No. 1 is to continue to dream big and don’t let anybody stand in your way.”

Free agency

By his own admission, Hill was “uncoachable” in high school. His temper was quick, his attention span was short and he didn’t like to be told to do anything.

Worse, Hill began surrounding himself with non-ambitious friends who liked to go to parties and get into fights. He stopped listening to his parents and wouldn’t tell them when he was going out or where he was going.

His attitude and immaturity made him a potential locker room cancer at KHS, where Gulledge won three state titles before resigning last spring to work in the private sector.

Hill had played on the KHS junior varsity team and was on the varsity roster for parts of his junior and senior years, participating in after-school practices and team summer camps under Gulledge.

But before both of his final two seasons got under way, Hill’s behavioral problems found their way to the surface. There was the issue of his arrest, which has since been expunged from his record, as a junior. The fight stemmed from a simple name-calling incident in a classroom and resulted in an automatic charge.

The following season, as Hill nursed a back injury, Gulledge didn’t see the progress in his maturation he had hoped to see and had to make a tough decision. There were too many straws on the camel’s back.

“We never want to take a kid and just completely just cut them loose,” Gulledge recalled. “Trust me: If it was something that he did, it was probably a progression that made our decision what our decision was.”

Hill, meanwhile, continued to play AAU ball in the summer in addition to spirited pickup games at local recreation facilities.

He watched with mixed emotions as his friends and former teammates at KHS were crowned champions and feted by the community.

“I was proud of them for winning that ring, but it was kind of bittersweet,” Hill said. “It was kind of a bitter taste in my mouth because I know I should’ve had a ring.”

He sought the counsel of his two older brothers, who advised him to do what he could to just keep playing.

Gulledge, clearly torn about having to cut Hill, sat down with him on multiple occasions during his senior year to talk about the importance of overcoming adversity while recognizing and seizing opportunities. There was talk of backs against walls, learning processes and make-or-break moments.

And then Gulledge said something about tryouts at LCC.

Harnessing potential

LCC’s gym was crowded that day last May as players went through two-on-two and team drills, each of them doing everything they could to get Dawson’s attention.

In community college sports, it’s not at all unusual for players to be found at such open auditions. Eight current LCC players, in fact, made the roster after a tryout.

It’s not terribly odd to have players on the roster who, for whatever reason, didn’t play in high school.

“I like that kind of kid, regardless of who it may be,” Dawson said. “Maybe you weren’t good enough when you first came out of high school or maybe you couldn’t make the team or you didn’t do the grades or you hung with the wrong crew. But now you want to change your life and you come out here and work hard. We’ll give you the opportunity.”

What is unusual, Dawson admits, is for a player who didn’t play for his high school team — let alone star on it — to make such an impact on a college team right away.

It took Hill all of two games this season to show that he belonged in the starting lineup. A natural guard, he’s playing in the post because of Dawson’s dearth of big men.

Hill entered the weekend averaging a team-high 24.0 points per game, which would be good for fourth among National Junior College Athletic Association Division II players if the Lancers had enough games behind them for him to qualify.

Hill’s success doesn’t surprise Gulledge, who saw his potential — and his innate ability to get to the rim and draw fouls — earlier than most.

“He’s got that ‘it’ factor on him,” Gulledge said. “I’ll be honest with you: You’ve got to have some sumbitch in you if you’re going to be really, really, really good. And he’s got it. He’s got that meanness and toughness to him, but he just didn’t know how to harness it.”

A rude awakening

So what really happened? What made Josh Hill’s story different from all the other ones that begin with a trip to the courthouse and unfold with many unhappy returns?

Part of the truth lies in that mother’s glare. Michael and Lillie Hill raised their three boys in the shadow of Grainger Stadium to be honest, hardworking students.

Older brothers Aubrey and Michael Jr., both fine athletes in their own right, encouraged Josh to stay on the right path and let basketball take him farther than it took them.

Hill leaned on his brothers, whom he considers his best friends, for guidance. With the entire family living under one roof to this day, it remains easily accessible.

With that infrastructure in place, Lillie Hill was surprised that day when she got a call from the school saying that her son, who had recently broken his ankle in a pickup game, was in trouble.

“Naw,” she said to the principal, “this can’t be Joshua Hill.”

When she met Josh at the courthouse to post his bail, her eyes spoke volumes. Her son was sufficiently embarrassed.

“I’m representing myself bad, and better yet, I’m representing my family — my name — worse to come up with some handcuffs on like I’m an animal,” Josh Hill said. “And my mom’s sitting there looking at me like, ‘I raised you better than that.’ ”

While she didn’t have to say much that day, Lillie Hill spoke her piece when her son appeared in teen court a short time later. Near the end of the proceedings, before a sentence of 12 hours of community service, two tours of teen court jury duty and a fine of $143 was handed down, the judge asked whether anyone had anything to say.

“I’ve got something to say,” Lillie Hill told the full courtroom. “This is my first and last time in the Lenoir County Courthouse. If Joshua Hill comes again, he will be down here by himself.”

“Joshua Hill, did you hear what your mother said?” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir,” came the humble reply. “I heard what my mother said.”

Fulfilling a promise

Josh Hill had one more thing nudging him in the right direction, something bigger than basketball or state titles or friends or late-night parties.

Hill was especially close to his fraternal grandmother, Dorothy Hill, who lived by the railroad tracks near his house for most of his life.

In 2009, before his grandmother died of heart disease, he made her a simple, binding promise: He would do whatever it took to earn a college degree.

While his brush with the law represented a departure from that path, Hill’s internal struggle between right and wrong, anger and serenity, rebellion and conformity raged on. The company he was keeping didn’t help.

“It’s hard to stay away from the trouble,” Hill said. “It’s certain people that you grow up with. You don’t realize that it’s hurting you more than what it is. But the hardest part is not going away from your friends, but just watching them slowly as they hurt themselves. As bad as you know it’s wrong, you just keep doing it with them, not telling them that it’s wrong.”

Aubrey Edwards, Hill’s oldest brother, helped show him another way. Edwards, 33, pulled Hill aside after his arrest and shared his own cautionary tale.

As a freshman at KHS, Edwards tried out for the basketball team but was cut. He was so defeated by it that he never tried out again, although he blossomed into a formidable rec-league point guard who still plays for fun today.

“Keep playing,” he told his brother at that crossroads. “Keep trying.”

Knowing that without school there was no basketball, Hill buckled down in the classroom and figured that if he was good enough, an opportunity to follow through on what he told his grandmother would come.

He’s off to a good start after a successful first semester at LCC.

“I like keeping my promises,” he said.

In addition to helping the Lancers win, Hill’s focus will soon turn toward his next goal: transferring to a four-year school and letting basketball pay for the rest of his education.

Dawson, the veteran coach who has spent his career redirecting young lives, believes Hill’s ceiling is high.

“Whether it’s Division I or II, I can’t make that call,” Dawson said. “But I know that if he does what he’s supposed to do in the classroom and continues to grow basketball-wise, I think that he can get the next couple of years after this at no cost to him.

“A 6-2, 6-3, 240-pound young man, there’s always room for him.”

Originally a criminal justice major, Hill is considering a switch to physical education so he can work in physical therapy when his basketball career ends — hopefully, he said, after a stint playing professionally overseas.

Today, Hill speaks in a manner that hints at a long-sought and hard-earned inner peace, a far cry from the volatile would-be teammate Gulledge was twice forced to turn away.

Tellingly, Hill’s ultimate post-basketball goal is to find others like him and see to it that they find and walk in his footprints.

“I’d rather take my basketball skills and pass it on afterwards to some more kids in Kinston just to help out, because there’s a lot of people in Kinston that need help,” Hill said. “And there’s a lot of talented kids that don’t get the chance — well, that don’t seize the moment. So I’d rather help those kids make it, give them a chance, help them.”

David Hall can be reached at (252) 559-1086 or at david.hall@kinston.com.